


Remind Me

by octonaut



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mystery Trio, fiddlestan, mcgrunkle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-02 15:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4065001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octonaut/pseuds/octonaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fiddleford is starting to remember. Stanley is holding a thirty-year grudge. Quarrels and hesitant touches abound as the oldest of friends remember how to be soft.</p><p>(Occurs at some ambiguous point after SotBE and before NWHS, AU because I have no regard for canon, gg)<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Night We All Spent Alone

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to scrybaby, thx for getting me to write again!  
> (got constructive criticism? cool, hmu)  
>  **EDIT:** went back and updated stan's name to stanley and the author's name to stanford after thinking about it. hopefully that makes things less confusing!

“Wow,” Mabel Pines said, her eyes alight with earnest awe, “it doesn't even look like a hunk of junk anymore!”

Fiddleford McGucket tried to hide his grin behind the wide brim of his hat. “Aw, shucks.”

“No, she's right,” Dipper said as he looked the laptop over. His eyebrows were raised ever so slightly as if he was shocked Fiddleford had been able to improve the thing at all. “This thing actually looks like a laptop again, and Bill – uh, _I_ – smashed it up pretty bad.”

“Good job, Mr. McGucket,” Mabel said. She reached across the table, palm outstretched for a high five. Fiddleford pretended not to notice.

“I'm thinkin' you should probably thank me later,” he said, “considering it still ain't working properly.”

Dipper's eyebrows immediately shot down, his grin flip-flopped. “What? So you didn't  _actually_ fix it? Why not?”

Mabel slapped him across the shoulder. “Don't be mean!”

“No, he's right. I – I couldn't quite figure it out, what the problem was.” Fiddleford tried not to frown – not in front of the kids – but he couldn't quite manage it. “Guess I don't remember as much as I thought I did.”

“Oh, McGucket,” Mabel said, frowning along with him.

“But you'll keep trying?” Dipper said, and his eyes grew so wide that Fiddleford could hardly turn him down.

“Yeah.” He tried for a grin. “I reckon I will.”

“Yes! Thank you!”

“But don't forget to take breaks and have fun sometimes because there's no rush,” Mabel said, nodding sagely.

“Mabel, what are you-- There's a huge rush, summer's almost over!”

“There's no rush,” Mabel said again, as if Dipper wasn't currently staring daggers at her.

Fiddleford grinned despite the one-sided spat that broke out in front of him. He liked these kids – appreciated them quite a lot, actually, thinking back on how kindly they had treated him. They included him in their adventures, spoke to him like a real person. Mabel was better at that last one than Dipper, Fiddleford noted, recalling the several times Dipper had failed to notice Fiddleford was even there, but he couldn't blame the kid. Most people averted their eyes from him these days, whether intentionally or not. Privately, he had grown to like it; in his humble opinion, being ignored was a step up from dodging glares and pitying glances wherever he went. It was easier on the heart to pretend he had blasted himself with a vanishing-ray rather than a memory-wiping gun.

“Yeesh,” said an approaching voice, “is it just me or did this library get more boring since the last time I was here?”

Dipper was quick to swipe the laptop off the table and onto his lap while Mabel spun around in her chair, beaming. “Grunkle Stan!”

“Hey, kiddos,” Stan said with a fatherly grin. He ruffled Mabel's hair, his large hand neatly enveloping her skull.

Fiddleford couldn't explain it – not the tugging in his chest nor the bone-deep feeling of shame that came over him – but he suddenly wanted more than anything to leave. The gravelly voice of Stanley Pines rasped like sandpaper through his brain, his sharp suit flashing like strobe lights. Fiddleford averted his eyes.

But looking away was not enough. He felt Stanley's eyes rake over him, heard the slight sneer in his voice when he said, “Buzz off, old man.”

Fiddleford had to shut his eyes against the whiteness that flashed behind his eyes. He heard a voice – distant and fuzzy, like the chatter of an old radio.

_Buzz off, Fidds._

Then came the laughter, brusque and deep, gravelly, over and over like a broken record until it became nothing but noise screaming in his head, over and over--

“Hey.”

Fiddleford's eyes flew open just as Stanley snapped his fingers, mere inches from his face. Their eyes met. Fiddleford shrank back at the darkness he saw.

“I said beat it,” Stanley said.

A quiet whimper passed Fiddleford's lips. He scrambled backwards out of his chair, hit the floor with a skull-rattling thud, and scampered off.

Stan stared after him for a moment, his eyes as steady as a hawk's, until a tiny hand slapped his arm.

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel said sharply.

“What, did something get my arm?” Stan said, rubbing his bicep. “Are there mosquitoes in here or something?”

“We were kind of having a conversation here,” Dipper said irritably.

“Yeah, Mr. McGucket's starting to get his memories back!”

Stan glanced at her, his eyes gone slightly wide. He didn't notice Dipper behind his back, motioning frantically for Mabel to shut up.

“His memories?” Stan said, quiet at first. Then he let out a great bark of a laugh and slapped Mabel across the back, nearly slamming her face into the table. “That's impossible, the guy's crazy! I'd be surprised if he can even remember to bathe. Sure doesn't smell like it.”

“He's not crazy, he's smart!” Mabel insisted. “Smarter than Dipper!”

“Yeah-- Hey,” Dipper said, but went ignored.

“He lives in the junkyard, Mabel.”

“Well – well it's not like he can afford a nice house! Or a bed! Or clothes!”

“Or a bath,” Stan muttered.

“Just give him a chance?” Mabel said, her eyes glistening. “For me? How do you know you don't like him if you won't talk to him?”

For once, Stan didn't have a witty retort lined up for this one. What could he have said?  _Ha, joke's on you, I used to talk to him every day! Even funnier – listen to this, Dipper, listen – I told him I loved him! Ha!_

Stan felt the blood drain from his face at the mere thought. He scratched loudly at his chin, shrugged, made a face as if he was actually considering her offer.

McGucket regaining his memories posed a problem. He knew of Stanford, knew of the giant machine beneath the Mystery Shack – what would he remember first? What might he go blabbing about, and to whom? Surely, he would have questions, and surely, once he remembered enough, Stanley was the one he'd come running to.

If Fiddleford McGucket was really starting to remember then everything was about to change, and that did nothing to appease the sense of foreboding that swirled in Stan's gut.

“It's getting late,” he said abruptly. He gave the kids a warm smile. “Let's go home.”

 

 

Fiddleford realized three hours too late that he had forgotten the laptop.

He slapped a hand to his face. The sudden movement startled the raccoon that had been pawing through the junk at his feet but he let her scurry away to some dark corner of the shack.

“Dangit, Fiddleford,” he said, “you're supposed to be remembering things now, not forgetting 'em.”

But that was easier said than done. He seemed to have no control over what he remembered and what remained forgotten. Old memories would return to him in a dizzying bang that sent him reeling, with no warning and little instigation. He'd already had four more since leaving the library, since the most unpleasant episode he'd had so far.

That one had had plenty of instigation. That Stanley Pines had really jostled his head.

Fiddleford tried to put it out of his mind. He was getting closer to uncovering his true self – he could _feel_ it, an itching anticipation that ran through his veins like blood. He was gleaning glimpses of his past quite frequently now, piecing them together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Like Stanford. Stanford Pines. That had been the researcher's name. Hair too long, too unruly, but he had always refused to cut it short. Always laughing about something, even things that didn't warrant laughter, but Fiddleford couldn't remember what those things might have been. Hated coffee, drank a lot of it. Just small details. Glasses, maybe. Stanford: A Pines man, a brother. Fiddleford hadn't seen any of him or his friendliness in Stanley's chilling glare.

For what felt like the hundredth time that night, Fiddleford had to force the thought of Stanley from his mind. He took off his hat, tossed it aside, and ran a hand through the tuft of gray that had recently gotten to growing on his head. If only his teeth would grow back, too.

But he was making progress. He had tidied up his shack, sorted out all the junk metal he planned to build with, patched up the holes in the walls with deliberate albeit haphazard slabs of metal. It was better, certainly, but something still bothered him and it bothered him even more that he couldn't figure out what.

The only new addition he properly liked was the change he had made to the broadest wall in the back of his home. He supposed it looked like a bit of a mess from afar but when you got in close it was actually a collage of paper, magazine clippings he had cut out ever so carefully with a rusty pair of scissors. Cutouts of suits – business and tweed alike – and other semi-formal collared shirts peppered a good chunk of the wall; all things he thought he might have worn back in the day. There were some briefcases thrown in there for good measure, all clutched by disembodied hands he had cut off at the wrist. There was no artistic direction behind any of it – it was more of an emotional piece – and even he had to admit the smell was off-putting. That was what he got for thieving the magazines out of dumpsters in the night.

But smell or no smell, the plan didn't change.

Fiddleford straightened up a little as he stared at the collage with purpose, screwing up his face to drown out the sound of his raccoon wife chattering in the background.

He stared and said, “I am Fiddleford Hadron McGucket.”

He waited for something, anything. He cleared his throat.

“My name,” he said, voice lowered, “is Fiddleford Hadron McGucket.”

His mind offered him nothing, only echoes of that same gravelly laugh he'd heard in the library. The silence only made it more pronounced.

His shoulders drooped. “Fiddlesticks.” The raccoon didn't notice the helpless glance he gave her then. “That's my name, innit? That's me! That was me in those memories!”

The raccoon waddled unhelpfully past him and he stared after her, wringing his hands.

“D'you think maybe... maybe I'm not anymore? Not Fiddleford McGucket?”

Her only reply was a quiet huff before she disappeared beneath his desk.

“Aw phooey,” he sighed, waving her away. “You're no help today. In fact, I don't think you ever did me any good at all! All you care about is yourself! Selfish raccoon wife...”

He crossed his arms and pointedly turned his back on her. A moment passed as the gears in his head turned. Slowly, his eyebrows began to furrow.

“Raccoon wife,” he said again, quietly, as if the words made no sense. He spun around just in time to see her poke her little head out from under the desk. Something clicked in his brain. Fiddleford held his head, pointed at her, and let out a loud guffaw. “You're a raccoon! We ain't married!”

She tilted her head at him.

Moments later a small furry shape could be seen making a mad dash out of Old Man McGucket's lopsided shack. He appeared in the doorway after it, shaking his fist at its backside.

“Get out of my house!” he cried. “Don't come back! Leave me alone!”

He watched the raccoon until it scrambled out of sight around the bumper of half-crushed car. Slowly, his fist lowered back to his side and his face relaxed. A small weight seemed to lift from his shoulders and ride out on a sigh.

“Good,” he uttered. “Good riddance.”

He felt liberated as he ducked back into his shack, a small but satisfied smile on his face.

But soon enough, he was sorely missing having someone to talk to.

 

 

A few days went by – Fiddleford wasn't really sure how many, just that they had all left him bed-ridden with headaches. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the same man – broad-shouldered, brown hair, strong chin, ample nose – Stanford, but not Stanford at all. It only became worse when the memory grew stronger, when a gut-wrenching ache started to accompany the visions. It was longing and anger and guilt all rolled into one continuous punch to his stomach that lacked any rhyme or reason whatsoever, and he began to worry it might actually trigger another descent into madness.

He could distract himself well enough during the day – hammering metal together usually resulted in a headache strong enough to overpower the memory-induced one – but during the night? Sleep was impossible. The _notion_ of sleep was a poorly timed joke his mind made whenever his eyelids grew heavy, which was often. He thought he ought to laugh, just to be polite – he liked to make people feel good about their jokes – but he just couldn't muster it.

No one had come to visit him, and it made him feel ashamed that he hoped someone would. The Pines children came to mind first, with their smiles and creativity. He thought of his son second, but that was another ill-conceived joke that did, in fact, make him feel slightly ill. His son had stopped coming to the junkyard months ago.

Was it possible that anyone missed him? Had anyone noticed he had barely ventured out of his house at all lately?

Fiddleford let his hat flop down over his face with a groan, hoping to block out some of the daylight and summer heat. He twisted and turned in his raggedy bed, wishing he could stop thinking for just one moment.

Wishing such a thing made him feel like a coward, a quitter, but it did not stop him from clamping his hands over his ears and willing it all to go, go away.

 

 

“Damn you, Stanley Pines!” Fiddleford called out into the night, for no good reason other than that it felt like the thing to do. If anyone was out there they would not have heard him over the rain battering the junkyard to oblivion. The cool nighttime air was welcome change from the daytime heat but he could have done without the noise of the rain; his brain had been working heedlessly for hours, going in circles as if he was pedaling a bicycle midair – pushing and heaving and sweating but never moving an inch and _God_ he was exhausted. Did he even know how to ride a bike? Had Fiddleford Hadron McGucket ever learned?

If he had ever felt like the younger, smarter man he had seen in those bottled memories, even for a moment, that feeling was gone now, replaced by someone somber and drained.

He looked around his shack, grateful that the headaches had stopped at least. Gentle beams of blue moonlight sneaked through the slightest of cracks in the ceiling. Illuminated was his poor excuse for a bed, the heaps of scrap in the corner, and the metal tub he used to bathe himself when he could. He looked at all these things as if for the first time, as if this recess from the headaches had left his mind tuckered but clear, and felt something wither in his chest.

“I live in the dump,” Fiddleford said, defeated. How was he just now realizing this? This wasn't some kind of four star motel, wasn't even a one star motel, not even close, but it was truly only hitting him now. He was suddenly grateful for the solitude that had bothered him earlier because if anyone had been around now – even the raccoon – the shame might have killed him.

Fiddleford McGucket. The name was beginning to mean something again, but it brought with it a terrible self-consciousness.

“Oh God, I live in the dump.” Fiddleford ran a trembling hand through his hair, almost tempted to rip it right out while his hand was up there. “That ain't right, this ain't right.”

There was no way around it.

No way around it except to move out.

“What kind of thinkin' is that?” he asked himself. “Where are you gonna go? Who's gonna take an old hillbilly like you in?”

A few seconds passed while he let the question hang in the air. He stopped worrying at his hair. He stopped doing much of anything.

A hesitant smile passed over his face.

“Now – now that's wishful thinking, Fiddleford,” he said, but he was already headed for the door. “But I'm getting better now – a little bit, I think, and trying never hurt nobody. I'll show him. I'll show him, he'll see!”

He swept the low hanging raccoon skin out of his way and took the first step outside, his toes plunging straight into a puddle--

“What am I thinking?” he said with a little chuckle, and ducked back inside. A quick dash around the shack and he was out once more, shrugging into an oversized windbreaker he had picked out of a bin the other day. He didn't mind the stains – thought they were kind of fetching.

“This'll work,” he told himself. “I mean it, this'll work. I'm getting outta here and I'm not coming back.” He stepped out into the rain – the first step in a journey of many, he thought as hope swelled in his chest. “Finally,” he breathed. He truly felt ready.

The rain drenched him instantly – plastered his hair against his forehead and battered his thin shoulders. His weak arm shivered in its cast and his soaked beard weighed him down but Fiddleford trudged through the deserted streets of Gravity Falls with purpose in his strides.

His bare feet splashed numbly through puddle after puddle, his nose heaved in the scent of wet pines and fresh rain. The surrounding forests hissed under the sky's torrent.

Down the main street Fiddleford went, following it through town and almost out of city limits, until his toes dug into the mud of a well-trodden forest path. The downpour on his head let up a little as he slipped under the partial canopy of branches. He had many memories of this path, fresh ones. Some of them were even good.

He emerged from the brief spell of forest with an intake of breath raked in through chattering teeth. The lake of Gravity Falls loomed before him like a great rippling shadow, churned by the rain. He clutched his jacket tighter around himself, shivering from head to foot now, and trudged into the frigid sand.

“Gosh almighty that's cold,” he breathed, and thought of it no more. Soon enough, his feet would be too numb to feel it anyway.

Fiddleford shuffled toward the lone building on the lake's shore: The bait store. Darkness greeted him from the other side of the front door's little window but that was to be expected. It was getting late and his son was a good kid, had probably already gone off to bed. Fiddleford paused at the door, gripped by his first bout of hesitation. Heavy drops of water rolled off his face and dripped all over the porch.

“Maybe I didn't think this through,” he muttered to himself, though to anyone else it would have sounded less like words and more like audible chattering. He certainly hadn't thought through the journey over, having wound up a bad combination of elderly and soaked. What if he went and keeled over right on his son's doorstep? The thought was enough to startle him into throwing his fist at the door – once, twice. More than twice. A lot more than twice. Too many times. He was cold and desperate and his hand took on a manic life of its own.

“Stop, Fiddleford, stop,” he hissed, and actually grabbed himself by the wrist.

A glowing, warm, lovely light switched on inside the bait shop. That tiny flicker of hope flared up in Fiddleford's chest, warming his core. To be in there, in the warmth, in the dry, with his son of all people, God almighty, he would have given anything.

A man approached the door, wide in the hips and long in the face, his silhouette made radiant by the light behind him. He gazed out the window, arching down to get a look at Fiddleford. His shoulders rose and fell as if with a sigh. Clearly in no rush, he began to work at the door's locks. Fiddleford watched patiently until finally the man pushed open the door. He must not have realized how close Fiddleford was standing because he slammed the thing right into his foot. Must not have noticed that either, because he remained quite silent.

Fiddleford grinned weakly, biting back the pain, and gave a shaky wave. “Howdy--”

He froze in place as a terrible chill that had nothing to do with the rain soaked him through. His brain stuttered to a halt.

Name – _what was his son's name?_

“Dad,” the lake ranger said, sounding quite the same as someone who had just opened their door to greet a tax collector. He stared down at Fiddleford with bloodshot eyes – quite nice eyes, his father's, and Fiddleford never understood why he tried to hide them under a hat all the time. He was glad to see them now.

“Son,” Fiddleford settled on, but the light in him had gone out. His wreck of a tongue tried to force words through frozen lips. “Son, I'm – I was wonderin' if maybe you had it in your heart to t-take in your old man? Just for a night, at least,” he added quickly. “An'-- An' see how it goes?” He tried for a warm smile of the frozen variety.

The lake ranger uttered the quietest of sighs as he lifted a hand up to his eyes. “Dad.”

“Just – Just seein' as it's raining and all! And I was in the neighborhood.” Fiddleford failed to keep the frantic edge from his voice. He was still smiling only because his face had frozen like that. “I don't wanna live in the dump no more, really. I wanna fix this, I wanna fix me-- Look, I'm getting better! My hair--” He had lifted a shaking hand to point at the wet tangle of gray on his head but the lake ranger cut him off.

“Dad,” he said sharply. He frowned immediately after at the dejected look on his father's face, as if he regretted using such a tone. “I don't have room,” he said, almost gentle now. Almost. “That hasn't changed since the last time we had this talk.”

“I – I can sleep on the floor,” Fiddleford offered faintly.

“No you can't. This building has two rooms. One of them's the store, the other's my house. There's no room.”

“I won't be a bother, I promise. I--”

The pit in Fiddleford's gut froze over as his son glanced back at the clock that ticked quietly on the wall.

“I'm getting better, Son, I am,” he said, the words rushing out of his mouth. “I mean it, I wouldn't lie to you about this, I wouldn't make this up, I wouldn't.”

The lake ranger rubbed his eyes. “It's three in the morning, Dad. Go home. Please.”

Fiddleford opened his mouth – to plea or to beg, he was prepared to say anything – as the lake ranger retreated into his home and yanked the door shut with him. Fiddleford let his jaw hang loose. The warm light inside flicked off. Something within him seemed to go out with it.

The night became a great deal colder.

“Okay,” he said, still staring at the piece of darkness where his son had been. “Okay, Son, I'll see you later. Maybe tomorrow after the rain's died down. Nice talkin' to you.” He couldn't tell if his lip quivered from the cold or from something else. “Love you, too. Bye now.”

He took a slow, reluctant step away from the door. His feet had lost their barrier of numbness while he'd been standing on the porch and they now faced the full brunt of coldness from the sand. The rain pounded against his skull, sharp like tiny icicles. He wondered if it was possible to drown in all this rain. He'd probably be able to manage it somehow – he had always been a poor swimmer.

He let his feet carry him. Go home, his son had said, but returning to the junkyard was no longer an option – not now, not after all this. Home was where his family was, and his son was his family.

He should have told him that. Things might have ended differently if he thought to say that to his son.

“Damnit, Fiddleford,” he said, just barely.

He scolded himself under his breath all the way back up the well-trodden path for much longer than he realized, following the main road until another dirt trail veered off to his left. He slowed to a stop to stare down the path that plunged into dark forest. He knew where this led, too – not as well as the trail that led down to the lake, but he knew few trails as well as that one. This one he had been down only a few times in recent years, and yet....

Fiddleford found he could not look away. It could have been perspective, he supposed, but the way the trees bent around the road was so slight and almost perfect, like a great bonsai tunnel. The markings on their trunks were somehow, miraculously, as familiar as the pages of a well-loved book. It even smelled differently here, like ancient pines creaking in a warm summer wind, like fresh laundry hung up to dry. Fiddleford could _smell_ marshmallows and hot chocolate even though he had not tasted them in thirty years and someone was prodding the campfire, blowing embers across his shoes and hot smoke in his face--

The ghost of a headache suddenly pulsed in his skull, making him wince. The rain became real again, the wind howled in his ears, and he shuddered against the biting cold.

Whatever that memory had been, he wanted it back. He wanted to feel warm again, to taste food that wasn't tainted by the tang of garbage, even if it wasn't real. Anything that stopped him being whoever he was right now, he wanted it.

Fiddleford set off down the road and into the woods at a desperate staggering sprint. The darkness swallowed him easily. Damp pine needles softened his footfalls. Still, all he could smell was the rain.

After what seemed like an eternity the trees parted in a large clearing and he slowed to a stop. Before him, the Mystery Shack weathered the downpour like a slumbering giant. A solitary lamp lit up the back porch, setting the mustard yellow couch there aglow. The windows were dark – but of course they were, Fiddleford had to remind himself, it was very late. No one else in town was out running around in the rain like he was. They were home, sleeping in their warm beds, their families only a few doors down.

The thought brought a hot stab of envy to his stomach, along with a terrible realization of the futility of this whole charade.

“Why'd you come down here?” he asked himself, because he had to ask _someone_. “The twins are sleepin' and Stanley is-- What, didja expect him to welcome you inside? Open arms and all? At this godforsaken hour?”

A painful pulse in his head and then--

_Come on in, Stanford's already downstairs--_

Miserably, Fiddleford dragged himself up onto the back porch, at least to get out of the rain. It battered the sheet metal overhead, making a sound like pots banging together, but this rain-against-metal was different than the kind he heard at the junkyard. This one felt safe, familiar, and brought to his mind the image of a TV screen framed by the darkness of an unlit room, of a hot drink in his hand and an arm curled comfortably around his shoulders, cushioning his neck.

Fiddleford blinked. Even as he sighed and rubbed his eyes he still felt the ghost of that strong arm around him. It was attached to no body, no face. The part of him that remembered it was happy and that made him all the more miserable.

Dejectedly, he flopped down on the couch, carefully avoiding the damp half that had been caught by windswept rain. The cushion felt as pillowy and lovely as clouds under his head; he never once realized how stiff it actually was. Tempted by exhaustion, he turned his head, burying half his face, and heaved a sigh. The faint scent of mold shot up his nose, along with the burn of cigarettes and a light whiff of cologne.

Fiddleford couldn't remember having smoked a day in his life – could not remember wanting to and had no interest in starting now. Inexplicable was it when the ungodly stench of cigarettes suddenly left him falling prey to a bone-deep ache that had him biting back tears.

“I hate this,” he uttered, huddling further into his oversized jacket. “It'd be easier just to forget.”

He wished he could forget how cold he was, wished he could be the man he'd seen in his memories, the one that liked the smell of cigarettes. It wasn't necessarily a bad smell, he admitted after a moment. Just overbearing. He wondered suddenly if his junkyard stench would smother it out.

In the end it was the thought of a warm shower that wrenched the first and only sob from him. He clamped a hand over his mouth and left it there, left it until his eyelids began to droop and his shoulders went slack and he drifted off to the song of the sheet metal above him.

He dreamt of Stanford Pines – of his penchant for ideas, his exuberance, the occasional late night breakdown. He dreamt of his wife, leaving him over and over again as Stanford proposed new idea after new idea. With them was always a presence, strong and warm and stinking of cigarette smoke. For once, Fiddleford's dreamself felt calm.

In the shadows of his dreams something bigger loomed, something absolutely brilliant. It tantalized him, dancing just along the edges of his mind. He dreamt of a project, of three keys – of something that could destroy them all.

 

 

A gasp tore from Stan's throat as he jerked upright, blankets pooling at his midriff. It took him a moment, a few slow and heavy breaths, to realize he was still safe in his bedroom. He gritted his teeth, brought a hand to his forehead to paw at the sheen of cold sweat there. He listened to the muffled patter of rain as he gripped his sheets, feeling their texture. This was real.

“Shit,” he hissed, and dragged his hand down his face.

He thought he had freed himself from these night terrors ages ago. He had worked tirelessly to control his mind, to safeguard it, and it had worked. It had worked for – his hand hid a scowl – roughly thirty years.

“Damn you,” he croaked into his palm.

Visions of a machine thrumming and lighting up the room in a whirlwind of spinning colors flashed before him as if branded to the insides of his eyelids. He dropped his hand, stared distractedly at nothing in particular. He needed a smoke.

He fingered a packet of cigarettes open as he padded out into the hall, robe swishing at his feet. He paused at the foot of the stairs and gazed up into the attic, listening, but all was quiet. Satisfied, Stan plucked out a smoke and tucked the rest of them into his pocket before reaching for the door.

A gust of wind blasted his face as soon as he stepped outside, chilling the sweat on his neck and back. He muttered something rude and drew his robe tighter around himself, clutching that single cigarette as if it might blow away. It took him a few tries to light it – the storm was having none of his bad habits and he couldn't say he blamed it. He was trying to limit his smoking these days, especially while the twins were staying with him, but these were desperate times. This was a desperate measure.

He took a drag, relishing in the sin of it for just a moment. The cold was biting enough to reach his toes in their slippers but he relished that, too; it was a constant reminder that he was here, and now, and not downstairs in the basement watching his brother be swept away into a swirling vortex of color.

Another sigh, but this one was more of a groan. He had buried this years ago, why was it coming back now?

Stan approached the couch and, as if on cue, clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle the bark of a cry that shot up his throat. He swallowed it with difficulty. Curled up on his couch and sleeping soundly was a sad, bedraggled little old man. With his face half-buried in the cushion and the oversized windbreaker hiding half of his body Stan only managed to recognize him by the long white beard pinned under his arm. There was a great deal of familiarity in the man's odd posture – he always used to disfigure himself with the strangest sleeping positions – but Stan firmly pretended he hadn't remembered that.

Stan stared, his smoke hanging limply at his side. It was too late at night for this, he thought numbly. He was too tired to be dealing with all this old shit coming back to life in his brain like zombies rising from the dead.

He came forward, hand outstretched, cigarette jutting from between his fingers. Wake up, he meant to say, meant to grab hold of that bony shoulder and shake it until it popped from its socket, but his hand froze half a foot away, trembling, as if repelled by an invisible force. His arm felt as stiff as a rod. The rest of him froze as well as he took in the quivering of McGucket's arms, the sad smell of him. Stan noted vaguely that he was soaking wet and probably not doing his poor couch any favors but this observation was quickly set aside when he noticed something that interested him a great deal more.

McGucket's hair was growing back.

He stared, only breathing.

Finally, Stan pulled away, frowning, and tended to his cigarette. His eyes scanned the surrounding forest, the deserted parking – anywhere but the couch.

“What are you doing on my porch?” he muttered, quieter than the rain. “What is this? You want handouts? Food, money? What do you want from me?”

Only McGucket's soft breathing answered him.

“You're not getting it. I have nothing for you. You hear me? Nothing.” He puffed on his cigarette, frown only growing more pronounced. “You did this to yourself,” he said, and hated the sound of his own voice.

He grunted and slipped back into the house, slouching something terrible.

He returned only a minute later with a bundle of quilts draped over his arm.

“Dumb bastard,” he said under his breath, and drew the blankets over McGucket's shivering body. Gently, as light as a breeze, to avoid waking him. McGucket seemed to shrink several sizes under the bulk of the blankets until he was just a small, young thing again, the perfect size to surround, to wrap an arm around and pull into the nook at Stan's side that had been empty for thirty years.

Stan stared down at the huddled figure on his couch, his mouth drawn in a very taut line.

“And you're a dumb bastard, too,” he said gruffly, and went back inside.

 

 

Fiddleford rose with the sun. The first peaks of light through the dense treescape eased him into consciousness. The chirps of early morning birds hopping in the dew-wet grass tugged his mind away from fading dreams of his old life. He stretched his legs, wiggling toes that were still sore from the night before, sleepily deciding to think about that mess later. For now, he just wanted to stay comfortable. He snuggled into the couch with a tiny contended sigh and pulled the blankets up to his chin--

His eyes snapped open.

He sat upright, goggling down at the thick pile of quilts that had somehow managed to find him in the night. They were soft to the touch, well-loved and somehow reminiscent of long, cozy nights in a bed that wasn't quite big enough for the people sharing it. Strange town this was, Fiddleford thought, with a strange forest inhabited by little creatures that showered blankets upon cold men when they weren't looking.

Except he was still at the Mystery Shack and it was much more likely that someone had woken in the middle of the night and found him here. He smiled a touched little grin as he traced a line of stitching with his finger. Dipper and Mabel Pines were just too thoughtful – he didn't deserve their kindness.

When he returned to the forest path on aching feet he bid the Mystery Shack farewell, but not before folding each of the quilts and leaving them safely by the door in an orderly stack.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not the most exciting chapter since i'm just setting the tone here but thIS REALLY IS FIDDLESTAN trust me it'll happen  
> trust me ok


	2. Our Restless Minds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody's happy and Stan and Fidds continue to avoid spending more than five seconds in each other's company. _Not for long,_ the author chortles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DAMN, FINALLY. just a post-ATOTS note but this is officially a Mystery Trio Classic AU fic ~~so I will not be updating Stan's name. sorry for any confusion this might cause!~~ (i lied)

Stan woke after a troubled sleep. Tired and aching, he dragged himself through his morning ritual. The bathroom greeted him with a blinding ray of light through the window and the reflection of a drooping old man in the mirror.

“Yeesh,” he uttered, dragging a hand down his sagging cheek. “Keep that up and you'll scare away all your customers.” Either that or he would attract even more who thought he was one of the Shack's attractions – it was up in the air.

After a quick shower and a lazy shave he stopped by the back door on his way to the kitchen to peek outside. A blue sky stretched over the Mystery Shack, brushed by mere wisps of the clouds left over from last night's storm. Birds said hello with cheerful chirps as they scoured the grass for worms.

Haltingly, Stan spared a glance at the couch. McGucket was long gone – the couch looked untouched as though he'd never even been there – but it was not this absence that made Stan frown.

His blankets – the quilts that had once belonged to Stanford, that had weathered each of Stan's lonely nights – were gone.

Stan couldn't help but wonder if the old man, pitiful in all things, had stolen them. He could imagine the bastard making off with them in the night, giggling and scampering away with a great patchwork sack hauled over his shoulder. He had probably taken them back to his junkyard cesspool to nest in them.

“That's what you get, Stan,” he muttered, picking sleep from his eyes. “You show people a bit of kindness and they rob you blind. You're a real sap. Gotta work on that.”

He ducked back into the house, making a mental note to storm the junkyard later, possibly with the pistol he kept hidden in his safe. He made for the kitchen but paused mid back-scratch when he realized he wasn't alone.

“Good morning!” Mabel said, and flashed him a grin before digging into her bowl of cereal.

“Hey, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper said. “I found all your blankets outside the door so I brought them in. Hope that's okay.”

The smallest of frowns was all that betrayed the wave of guilt that washed over Stan. “Oh,” he said easily, “sure. Thanks, kid.”

“Gompers was kind of eating them so there might be a few holes. Sorry,” he added as an afterthought.

Mabel looked at Stan with concern, her mouth totally full. “What were you doing without blankets, weren't you cold?”

Stan shrugged and made for the coffeemaker. “They were starting to smell moldy so I thought I'd air 'em out.”

Dipper frowned. “You thought they were getting moldy so you aired them out... in the rain?”

“Sure. Washes all the bad stuff out.”

Dipper made an odd face at him.

“Oh no, do you think our stuff's all icky too? What about my sweaters?”

“What-- Mabel, no, our stuff's fine, that's not even how it--”

“So,” Stan said loudly, “you kids are up early today. What's going on, did I forget someone's birthday again?”

“We,” Dipper announced, “are going into town today. Got some important stuff to do. Important teenager stuff.”

Stan smirked into the coffee filter as he poured grounds into it. “Wear your good shoes, it's a long walk.”

Dipper frowned again. “We were hoping you'd give us a ride.”

“Pretty please?” Mabel said.

“Look, kids, I dunno, I gotta work the Shack today. How long's this going to take?”

“It'll be quick,” Dipper said hurriedly. “You can just drop us off.”

“And who's gonna bring you back? Bigfoot? The lake monster?”

The coffeemaker gurgled away as Dipper and Mabel glanced at each other with furrowed brows. Stan inwardly rolled his eyes.

“I'll talk to Soos,” he said. “Not like he has anything better to do on his breaks anyway.”

Dipper's face lit up. “So you'll drive us?”

“Yeah, sure, why not? Just let me finish this coffee first so I don't total the car and kill us all.”

To the children's great frustration, Stan took his time. What could he say? He was old – and truthfully, he had gotten a poor and frozen night's sleep without his blankets, but he didn't mention that.

Stan was just tipping his fez onto his head as he joined the kids on the porch. Dipper started at the sight of him and shoved something unceremoniously into his backpack.

“You kids ready or what? Let's get going,” Stan said.

They all clambered into the car and took off. It was a brisk day, bright and breezy, and the little town was still reeling after last night's storm. Stan's car cut through puddles and crunched over fallen branches as they drove, jostling the twins in the back seat.

“So,” Stan said, drumming his fingers along the steering wheel, “where am I dropping you off?”

Dipper's fingers tightened around the suspiciously rectangular backpack in his lap. “Uh, just near the junkyard's fine.”

“Ugh, seriously?” Stan said, glancing over his shoulder at them for just a moment. “Can't I just leave you at the mall or something? You said teenager stuff, I thought you meant, like, shopping and vandalism. Come on, teenagers love the mall.”

Dipper opened his mouth to speak but Mabel beat him to it.

“Grunkle Stan,” she said with a sly grin, “are you giving us your official parental permission to go to Edgy On Purpose and draw on the window displays with glitter glue?”

“Honestly, if it means you're not at the junkyard, yes I am.”

Dipper shot glares at both of them. “No, Mabel, we're not doing that. Even though it would be pretty funny to mess with Robbie's favorite store-- No. Stop with the weird puppy eyes, we can't today.”

“Oh, poo, you're no fun.”

He tapped his wrist as if wearing a watch and uttered through clenched teeth, “Remember the schedule?”

Mabel waved him off. “I know, I know.”

“Hey,” Stan said, glancing over his shoulder again, “what are you two muttering about back there?”

“To the junkyard!” Mabel insisted – quite loudly, and right in Stan's ear.

Stan sighed. His knuckles went white around the steering wheel.

But on he drove. A tense silence overtook him, thankfully overlooked by the kids who had gotten to whispering amongst themselves. They were cautious, glanced at him every so often to make sure he wasn't listening in – and he wasn't, but he couldn't help but overhear a word or two. He couldn't begin to guess why they were muttering about laptops and some kind of society – possibly a laptop society, in which case they needn't whisper as it was over his head anyway – but he didn't particularly care, either. Kids were kids, and as long as they were keeping out of trouble of the supernatural variety he wanted them to have their fun.

Their whispering came to an abrupt end as soon as Stan pulled up outside the junkyard. He hadn't parked too close, had subconsciously slid down in his seat to avoid being seen. He was glad the kids were too busy climbing out of the car to notice.

“Thanks, Grunkle Stan,” Mabel said, flashing a smile at him through his open window.

“Yeah, sure. I'll tell Soos to meet you at--” He broke off, sat up stock straight when Dipper paused just inside the junkyard's entrance to wait for Mabel.

“Hang on,” Stan said tightly, “you're not going in there, are you?”

“Sure we are, that's why you dropped us here, silly,” Mabel said.

He could only stare after them as they turned their backs on him, as Mabel threw a quick wave over her shoulder. A responsible guardian would never allow them to wander unsupervised in a place as dangerous as this, the reasonable part of his brain said. The Mystery Shack was due to open in just an hour but he had a duty to watch them and keep them safe, regardless of the time.

But, said his unreasonable half, the thought of being late wasn't what had his stomach twisting into knots, was it? It had nothing to do with the Mystery Shack at all.

Why, Stan agonized, why were they like this? Why couldn't they have asked him to drop them off at the bar or the tattoo parlor? _Why here?_

“Huh,” came Dipper's distant voice. “Doesn't look like McGucket's here.”

Stan felt the anxious chain tying him to the car suddenly shatter. In one big clumsy jumble he yanked the keys out of the ignition, kicked the door open, and nearly caught his foot on the lip while scrambling out. “Wait up, I'm coming!” he called, and stumbled after them into the junkyard.

“Ugh, why?” Dipper said once he had caught up with them.

“It's,” Stan panted, “it's dangerous in here, it's a mess. You might step on a nail, or – or a car could fall on you. You could die of tetanus.”

Dipper glowered. “It's just the dump. We're not kids.”

“Relax,” Mabel said, punching him lightly in the shoulder. “We'll be super quick, in and out. No one will even know we were here. Except for McGucket, I mean, since we're here to return his _you know what_.” She winked at Dipper, who gave her a deadpan, unimpressed look.

Stan slowed, falling behind them. “In and out?” he repeated with a growing sense of dread. “In where?”

“Nowhere,” Dipper said, “this'll just take a second.” But their intentions became clear as day as they walked on and a haphazard shack of sheet metal and stacked cars came into view.

A quiet “Oh, God,” escaped Stan's mouth. The twins heard nothing, only kept walking. He quickened his pace and caught up with them just as Dipper reached to pull the hanging raccoon skin at the door aside.

“Hey, uh, you probably shouldn't go in there. Technically, we're breaking and entering. Or just entering. Still illegal.”

Dipper raised an eyebrow at him. “Since when do you care?”

“Since just now. I'm turning over a new leaf, I've changed my ways.”

Mabel laughed him off. “You're a funny guy, Grunkle Stan.”

Dipper rolled his eyes and together, the two of them went through the doorway, disappearing inside.

Stan grabbed at the fez atop his head, nearly crushing it beneath his fingers. “Why?” he hissed to himself. “ _Why?_ ” Then he shouldered through after them, like a resigned man on route to his execution.

Dipper was already off on his mission, Mabel right beside him, and Stan was left to stand in the doorway, suddenly very still. He was intensely grateful the kids had their backs to him because he was powerless to catch the sliver of emotion that slipped through his facade. He lifted a hand to cover his frown. His eyebrows only seemed to furrow deeper, right past the rims of his glasses. Twenty-five years and Stan had never come to this place – not until today. The junkyard shack was a total travesty, a jagged imitation of what a house should have been, but that was not what chilled him to the core.

He could recognize McGucket in this place – his penchant for order in the organized corner of scrap metal, his creativity in the half-built machines that littered the place. God, it was the machines that really did him in. They were the same type of little busywork projects McGucket used to tinker with and leave lying around his old lab. Stan remembered how often he had accidentally trodden on them, sometimes even sat on them if McGucket left them on the couch. The tiny machines were truly useless, usually capable of no more than popping wheelies and making funny noises whenever they toppled over, but God, Stan was remembering, and Stanford had adored them. He had liked to lie flat on his stomach and let the little things swarm him like miniature metal puppies, to watch them try to scale his fingers only to fall flat on their backs. The high-pitched beeping shouts they made never failed to make him laugh.

“Stan?”

It took him a slow moment to realize Mabel was frowning at him from the other end of the shack.

“You're not having one of those old man meltdowns, are you?” she said.

Stan abruptly dropped his hand from his mouth. “No, I'm fine. Just the smell in here, made me feel kind of sick.”

“Grunkle Stan,” Mabel said disapprovingly.

He shrugged halfheartedly. It was only half a lie.

“All right,” Dipper said, and swung his limp, noticeably emptier backpack over his shoulder. “Done! Let's get out of here.”

Mabel stopped him with a hand to his chest. “I think you're forgetting something.”

“I am? No I'm not, I left the--”

“Pencil, please.”

“Seriously? He knows it's from us.”

“Pencil,” Mabel demanded.

With a roll of his eyes and a short sigh, Dipper fished a knobbly pencil from the inner pocket of his vest and held it out for Mabel to snatch away. She procured a stack of heart-shaped sticky notes from somewhere – possibly one of the secret pockets Stan suspected she knitted inside all her sweaters – and started writing on the topmost note in large, bubbly letters.

“ 'Hi, Old Man McGucket,' ” she read aloud, agonizingly slowly. “ 'It's me, Mabel!' ”

“Don't read it out loud,” Dipper said. “Please. I'm serious.”

Stan turned away as they both bent over the pad of paper. He crossed his arms, looking around at the place but not really seeing it. _Say something_ , he thought, _you're too quiet, they're going to figure you out._

“Yuck,” he said, a little too loudly. The kids glanced at him with eyes that said “not this again.” “Remind me, why do you hang out with this guy?”

“Because he's a nice old man who needs company and doesn't have any friends,” Mabel said, an edge to her voice. “Like you, Grunkle Stan.”

“Ouch,” Dipper said.

Stan pointedly refrained from commenting. She wasn't wrong.

“And...” Mabel said, and slapped an oversized sticker at the bottom of the note. “Signed!”

Dipper suddenly reached for the pencil. “Woah, hang on, don't cover the whole thing, I want to write something too.”

“I knew you'd see my side of things.”

Stan didn't realize Mabel had left Dipper's side until she showed up right next to him a moment later. She laid a small hand on his arm and looked up at him with mischief in her eyes.

“Don't be sad,” she said, “you know I didn't mean it. We're your friends!”

“I'm not sad,” Stan said gruffly. “I don't even know what that word means. I'm a monster incapable of human emotion.”

Mabel chuckled. “That's pretty dumb.” She might have said more on the matter – Stan was very glad she didn't – but she looked away for just a moment and her attention was grabbed by something on the wall.

“What's all this?” she said as she approached it, dragging Stan behind her by the sleeve. He allowed her to pull him along, but only because it was in the vague direction of the door.

“Look, kids,” he said, “we're done here, time to go. I gotta open up the Shack and you gotta get on with your lives, commit some good old-fashioned vandalism, or--”

The joke died in his mouth as he finally registered what Mabel was looking at, and Jesus Christ was it sad and pathetic and a little bit nauseating.

“He has a fashion wall,” Mabel said with glee. She appraised each of the magazine clippings stuck to the wall as Stan watched in grim silence behind her. He wasn't sure what was worse – the amount of effort that had gone into this sad display or the fact that he could imagine a younger, brighter McGucket sporting each and every one of these fashion disasters with a smile on his face.

“He's not exactly up to date on the latest trends,” Mabel was saying, “but I'll give him an A for effort.”

“It stinks,” Stan muttered. “Like, it actually smells like garbage.”

“That's the smell of hard work and dedication.”

Stan would have died rather than tell her that he knew what McGucket smelled like after a long night's work and it certainly wasn't magazine pages rescued from the trash.

“Okay, I'm done,” came Dipper's voice, approaching fast. “Wow, what _is_ this?”

“It's art, Dipper.”

“I don't know about that.” Now it was his turn to examine the plethora of suits and collared shirts pinned to the wall. He frowned. “Gee, I hadn't really thought about it but... does McGucket ever actually change his clothes? I think this might be a wish list.” He put his hands on his hips. “That's kind of gross.”

Mabel's eyes went wide as a grin blossomed on her face. “Oh my gosh, I just had the best idea _ever_.”

Stan suddenly grabbed them by the shoulders and steered them toward the door. “That's it, we're leaving.”

“What, why?”

“Because I have a business to run. And because I hate this place. Makes me feel all weird.”

For once, he wasn't lying.

He led them back to the car where they said their swift goodbyes, where he watched their backs as they ventured into town. For the briefest of moments he felt a jab of anger at them for forcing him to brave the junkyard and visit a place he had avoided for many long years. The tin shack, the mess inside – he hadn't wanted to see any of it. His restless mind was going in circles and the day had only just begun.

Mabel had claimed McGucket was regaining his memories – Stan was beginning to believe she was right.

 

 

As it turned out, eating something other than garbage was a real challenge. It required something the rich folk referred to as “money.” Fiddleford had no such thing, but what he did have was ambition and just a bit of spirit.

Breakfast was a fiasco that had left him with a handful of soggy pancake and a back peppered with bruises from the blunt end of Lazy Susan's broom. He doubted he would be welcome back at the diner any time soon but, after he had taken his first bite of fresh pancake in several years, he couldn't say he regretted it. In fact, he was considering making another run first thing tomorrow.

Embarrassed as he was to admit it, the taste was not what made him desperate for more. His teeth clamped down, lukewarm butter ran over his tongue, and suddenly he was back at the diner, sitting on the aisle end of a booth. Someone sat across from him, his eyes smiling behind thick-rimmed glasses – Stanford, Fiddleford knew immediately, as naturally as if he had never forgotten.

He wolfed down another bite of pancake, closed his eyes, and felt a comfortable presence sitting on the booth beside him. The three of them ogled at the plate of pancakes that towered before them and a loud voice issued a challenge, made Stanford's eyes burn with the passion of war.

_Whoever can eat the most wins._

Another bite, and another, and Fiddleford felt a large, warm hand resting gently on his knee.

Before he knew it, he had eaten the entire pancake.

So storming the diner had been a bittersweet success, soured only by the terms of his victory. He wished he could have said he'd pulled it off thanks to a genius plan he had concocted in one of his moments of clarity, but in reality he had tripped over his own feet trying to escape, had probably burned his fingers by grabbing hot food, and made a total mess of the diner on his way out. The only reason he had managed to escape was that, as usual, no one seemed to want to touch him. Not even to stop him from stealing someone's breakfast.

Fiddleford had accepted it by now. He was filthy and strange and probably a bit scary to people who didn't know him and he couldn't blame them for keeping their distance. He didn't care. That's what he told himself.

Something else he told himself, this time out loud, was, “I'll be damned if this ain't the best pancake I ever had.” The woman he walked by gave him such a wide berth as he muttered to himself that she veered off the sidewalk and onto someone's lawn. He didn't feel like laughing when she tripped over someone's lawn gnome.

His pancake-induced joy wasn't much of a high at all and only lasted as long as the walk through town. It was long devoured and gone by the time his feet stopped on the pavement outside the Gravity Falls junkyard. “It's a real dump!” the dilapidated sign read. The barbed wire framing its edges was as welcoming as barbed wire could be.

“Betcha missed me,” he said with a weak smile, looking up at the sign as if speaking to it. “Well I didn't miss you.”

“It's a real dump!” the sign said.

“Don't I know it,” Fiddleford sighed. He dragged his feet through the dirt and gravel on his way to his house, because if he had learned anything from the disaster that was the night before, it was that it was very hard to stop being homeless.

He stepped into his house – not home, because he could at least liberate himself this much – and felt a slow wave of despair wash over him, his pleasant breakfast all but forgotten. In a futile reach for freedom he had pledged never to return here. He had truly meant to leave and never come back. Yet here he was.

“Can't say I didn't try,” he said with another weak smile that slowly fell. “Maybe I didn't try hard enough.”

Fiddleford shuffled past the desk, past his hat where it hung abandoned on a rod of metal jutting from the wall. Originally, he had donned that hat after all his hair had fallen out – some hidden, sane piece of his mind must have wanted to preserve what was left of his dignity. Now, he left it hanging on its makeshift rack.

The plan was to collapse in bed, maybe nap for a while and rest his poor, weary mind, but sitting on his bed, bearing a bright pink sticky note, was that old weathered laptop. Curious and baffled, Fiddleford plucked the note from the casing and held it up to read. Without glasses, he had to squint and adjust the thing in front of his eyes until it came into focus.

_Oh_ , he thought suddenly. _That's right. I used to wear glasses._

He read the note out loud. “ 'Hi, Old Man McGucket. It's me, Mabel!' ” He allowed himself a small chuckle.

“Howdy, Mabel,” he said softly.

“ 'Me and Dipper stopped by your house to give your laptop back but you weren't around.'

“Did you now? Well I'm sorry to hear that.

“ 'You were probably off on some crazy hillbilly adventure, like wrasslin' a gator, or serenading a bear with your banjo.'

“That I most certainly was not,” Fiddleford said regretfully.

“ 'Anyway, sorry we missed you, and good luck with the laptop! Remember, there's no hurry. Love, Mabel.' ”

Beside her name was a giant, glittering star that made his eyes burn when he looked at it. He smiled anyway. “Golly,” he murmured, then squinted. Scribbled below the sparkling eyesore was a hastier scrawl.

“ 'Don't listen to her, please hurry,' ” Fiddleford read. “ 'Dipper.' ”

A truly goofy grin grew on his face as read the note over again and even glanced down at the sticker, too. Someone had come to visit him – _him_ – and they had left him not spray-painted mockery or more trash at his door but a heart-shaped note. For the second time in two days he was nearly moved to tears.

“I gotta do somethin' for these kids,” he said, straightening up. “Something good.”

He supposed he had work to do on the laptop – Dipper would have loved him for it – but fixing the computer felt like a job he had been hired to do. What he wanted to do was something voluntary, something meaningful, something that Mabel might appreciate as well.

“But what?”

He stared down at the note in his hands as if it held the answer. His eyes gravitated toward the star-shaped sticker at the bottom, followed its pointed contours. Now that he thought about it, he was certain he had seen Mabel wearing a sweater that featured a large and colorful shooting

_star!” Stanford shouted suddenly, making Fiddleford jump. “Make a wish!”_

_Fiddleford turned his head in the grass, brow furrowed despite his grin. “Don't tell me you believe in that kind of stuff.”_

_“Shut up, I'm making a wish.”_

_Fiddleford laughed – then sneezed when a blade of grass snaked its way into his nostril – then laughed again. “I don't believe this! Stanford Pines, man of science, has been led astray.”_

_Stanford didn't look at him – his bright eyes were trained on the starry night sky above – but he was smiling. “You live in Gravity Falls and you're making fun of me for wishing on a shooting star? Really? Who even are you?”_

_“I'm a man who was promised genuine constellation knowledge by the end of tonight and I still haven't gotten it. Y'all do refunds?”_

_“Just make a wish, you hick.”_

_“Fine,” Fiddleford said, and looked up into the sky. Stars twinkled madly like thousands of little pinprick lights on an endless expanse of machine. Thousands of stars, thousands of possibilities. He didn't have to think long._

_“I wish Stanley was here.”_

_“You're not supposed to say your wish out loud.”_

_“That ain't fair, you never told me that.”_

_Stanford laughed. “Sorry.” A moment passed. “That was my wish, too.”_

Fiddleford sucked in a torrent of cold air through his teeth as the memory released him. His fingers had gone rigid and Mabel's note lay crumpled in his palm.

Stanford – a researcher, a colleague, a dear friend. And – Fiddleford's fingers closed around the crushed note once more--

“Stanley,” he whispered. Deep in his restless mind he heard a bout of gravelly laughter, smelled the stench of cigarettes.

And, though he didn't realize it until after much troubled pondering, now he knew what to make for Dipper and Mabel.

 

 

The last few customers trickled out of the Mystery Shack as Stan thumbed through wads of cash at the register, counting and occasionally jotting the numbers down. The summer sun was still high in the sky, shooting bright beams of light through the windows and across the floorboards, but only just. On the other side of the gift shop door families climbed into their Winnebagos and drove off down the beaten road, probably back to their motels or campsites where they would resume their vacation and have a grand old time instead of worrying about old ghosts from their pasts come back to haunt them. Stan scowled and slapped the packet of money back into the register before punching the tray shut.

“Wow, Grunkle Stan, I don't think I've ever seen you manhandle the register before.”

Stan's eyes snapped to the employee-only door where Dipper stood with an amused look on his face.

“Dipper,” Stan said with sluggish surprise. “You two just get back?”

Dipper frowned. “What? No, we've been here, like, forever. You didn't notice?”

Stan had to avert his eyes as Dipper's expression became less amused and more offended, and Stan was almost grateful for the interruption when Soos poked his head through the curtains that led to the Shack's museum. Almost.

“Don't feel too bad, Dipper,” Soos said. “Mr. Pines didn't notice when a customer was trying to get his attention, either. He turned around and basically punched him in the face with his entire elbow. Poor kid. I had to call an ambulance and everything.”

Stan groaned and massaged the bridge of his nose. “Shut it, Soos, the kid was fine, they didn't even take him to the hospital. Get back to sweeping.”

“Yes, sir,” Soos said with a straight-faced salute, and disappeared around the doorframe.

Dipper was still frowning but now it held some degree of concern. “Seriously? Someone was trying to give you money and you didn't notice? Are you okay?”

“Of course I'm okay, why do people keep asking? Why wouldn't I be? My life is great.” He said this with tired lines around his eyes and the tensest smile Dipper had probably ever seen. The kid wasn't stupid, Stan was forcibly reminded as Dipper regarded him with narrowed eyes.

“Yeah?” Dipper said skeptically. “Well I think something's up with y--”

“Mabel,” Stan called suddenly. “Mabel-- Dipper, where's your sister?”

“Watching TV, but--”

“Great, I gotta tell her to not do that. TV's bad for the brain, rots young and developing minds.” Dipper half-gaped at him as he came around the counter at full-speed. A large hand patted – practically swatted – his head and pushed his hat down over his eyes as Stan passed him. “Why don't you go help Soos clean up or something? Great, see you later.” With that, Stan was through the door and into the living room.

He stared, without words for a moment. Mabel was indeed watching TV but Dipper had failed to mention the sea of yarn she was drowning in. Skeins of the same shade of dark forest green surrounded her like the top half of a misshapen armchair. Waddles the pig snorted faintly from somewhere beneath it all.

Stan scratched his head. “Wow. Was the store having a sale? Fifty percent off Gravity Falls's ugliest crap!” Mabel looked up at him as he rumbled with laughter, her mouth a tight line.

“I didn't know how much yarn I'd need,” she said, her hands working overtime with the knitting needles in her lap. “I've never made a sweater this big before!”

“A big one? You making this thing for Soos?”

“No,” Mabel said, pondering, “but I should make him one eventually.”

After a moment of thought Stan suddenly frowned. “You're not making some weird joint sweater for you and the pig to wear at the same time, are you?”

“No,” Mabel said, then smiled. “But--”

“Nevermind, forget I asked. Forget I was even here.”

“Nope, too late! I'm feeling inspired! Weird joint sweater for me and Waddles – weird joint sweaters for everyone! I'll have to take everyone's measurements and get more yarn and--”

“Mabel,” Stan said, lifting a hand to press at his temple. “Kid, come on, just – take it easy, would you? You're giving me a headache.”

To his horror, the smile vanished off her face. She looked away just in time to miss the regret that darkened his features. He wanted to speak up, to apologize for snapping at her, but his tongue failed him. She glanced up at him.

“Grunkle Stan,” she said quietly, “are you okay? You've been kind of...”--she took her eyes off of his for good this time and frowned down at her knitting needles--“mean today. To us.”

Stan faltered. “No, no, it's just...” His hands motioned uselessly in front of him. “I've been...”

Forgetful and distracted, sharp and bitter. When he hadn't been snapping at the kids, he had been completely overlooking them instead.

Stan knew he had been off-kilter all day. It had started at the junkyard with a terrible, unsettling realization and had ended here, at home, with the neglect of his niece and nephew. His hands curled into fists, his arms gone rigged, and sickening self-hatred grabbed hold of him like a riptide.

His voice came out low and calm. “I'm going out.”

Mabel frowned after him as he passed in front of her, his legs briefly illuminated by the TV, and made for the back door. “Now? Where are you going?”

“Nowhere,” Stan said quickly, then stopped himself. He unclenched his fists and his palms throbbed where the fingernails had dug in. He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Don't worry about it. I'll be back soon.”

He didn't wait for her reply before heading out the door.

The sun was beginning its slow descent toward the horizon, setting the forest alight with the orange glow of sunset. A brisk breeze bit the back of his neck and made him shiver as he trudged through the dirt toward his car.

This constant worry eating away at him, souring his mood and making him unbearable to be around – it had to end. He needed the truth.

Two pairs of young eyes watched from the window as the red and white Diablo sped away from the Mystery Shack, leaving clouds of dust in its wake.

 

 

Stan gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles went white. He had pulled to a stop five minutes ago.

“Stupid,” he ground out, tense all over. “This is stupid, I'm so _stupid_.”

He had parked on the street corner, just a block away from his destination. It rose against the yellow sky like a fortress of trashed cars and barbed wire, every bit as intimidating as it felt.

“Get out of the car, you knucklehead, just _go_. He wasn't even there this morning, might not be there now – and if he is, what's he gonna do to you? Spit on you? Come on! Get – out – of – the”--he struck the butt of his palm against the wheel on every word, bared his teeth, slammed down on the horn--“car!”

With the dexterity of a desperate man, he kicked open the door and tumbled out onto the sidewalk. The new scuffs on his pants went unnoticed as he marched alongside the street, his eyes alight with determination and apprehension and the light of the setting sun. He entered the junkyard, passed the crooked sign, and delved into a sea of stacked cars.

McGucket's shack appeared around the hood of an old pick-up truck, the biggest eyesore among eyesores. Stan stormed up to the door like his intent was to bulldoze the thing down, hands balled into fists, teeth clenched, nostrils flared.

He hesitated.

“Come on, Stan,” he hissed.

He took a breath, raised a fist, and knocked on the wall beside the door.

It was the loudest sound he had ever heard. The clamor of knuckles against metal cut through the calm afternoon silence and it was jarring enough to tempt him to leave, to turn around and run.

But he didn't, and it was only the thought of Mabel's sad face that convinced him to stay.

He stood there waiting, stock still like an idiot, for far longer than he had anticipated.

“Hey,” he called, giving the wall another hard rap, “I'm waiting here. Hello?” He dared to lift the hanging raccoon skin away and peer into the hut but all was calm inside. He paused to listen but it was dead silent as well. Frowning, he backed out of the doorway.

“Bastard's not even here,” he muttered. “I came all this way and he's not even--” He swung his foot at the wall, crushing his toes and creating another loud clatter that pierced the silence.

“Damn it. Stupid.”

It was indignation and pure bull-headedness that made him stand and wait.

The sun sunk lower in the sky. The faded moon looked down on him from above. He crossed his arms and kicked at the dirt.

He didn't look up from the ground until a dirty pair of bandaged feet suddenly stepped into view.

Stan jerked back with a sharp gasp. McGucket floundered back with a cry of his own and dropped the odd sheet of metal he must have been pouring over. Stan was struck with an urge as instinctual as breathing to bend over and pick it up for him but it was as if all his muscles had been replaced with steel rods and he stood there quite still instead. He stared in some state of dumb shock as McGucket reached for the thing himself and hurriedly brushed dirt out of its many star-shaped holes. McGucket glanced up at him, his eyes wide with harmless surprise, and Stan felt his face go red.

“Where the hell have you been?” he snapped.

Somehow, McGucket's eyes went wider. His fingers grasped that piece of metal like it was his lifeline. “I've been out back, workin' on--”

“You've been here this whole time?” Stan smacked a palm against his forehead, inwardly berating himself for being an idiot. McGucket wasn't taken aback – if anything, Stan's show of weakness gave him a leg up.

“Is that so surprising?” he snapped right back. “I do live here.”

Stan was baffled as to why he had thought this was a good idea. He readjusted his glasses, tried to regain his composure, but nothing could change the fact that McGucket was watching him with a sharp self-awareness that Stan hadn't seen in him in thirty years. Stan knew the answer to his question – had known for sure the second McGucket had locked eyes with him – but he had to ask anyway. He had to hear it.

Stan said, quite abruptly, “Are you really getting your memories back?”

McGucket's bushy eyebrows rose ever so slightly. “The twins told you?”

“Just answer the question.”

Stan saw his shoulders rise as he steeled himself, saw his mouth curve into a familiar pinched frown, and God, Stan felt ill.

McGucket said, “I reckon I am.”

Silence overtook them as McGucket waited for any kind of response, as Stan tried to quell his churning stomach. He shouldn't have come, shouldn't have asked, shouldn't have found out. He should have buried the truth like he always did, should have kept running. But he could still run, now, while he had the chance – turn and run back to his car and drive back to his house where no one really knew him or of his past, or of his weaknesses and of his brother. He could still bury this--

“Can I help you with something?” McGucket said, peering up at him. Beneath his eyebrows his eyes were bright and focused, blue like the sky on a rainy day. Stan stared into them and he was locked there, a hand over his mouth, recognizing the questioning look in them and the hesitation on McGucket's breath because McGucket was remembering and, oh God, the things he _knew--_

“Stanley?”

A shudder tore down Stan's spine, ripping him from his statue-like trance. “I have to go,” he said – too loudly, too quickly, too desperately. “Forever.”

He quenched the urge to look over his shoulder as he walked back the way he had come but he felt those eyes, smart and quick, latch on to him from behind. He gasped for air through clenched teeth because his walk had broken into a jog, into a run, and the corner his car was parked on was just a few strides away. He was moving on autopilot, ducking into his car and clutching the wheel with shaking hands, pressing his forehead into it. His eyes were wide open, unseeing. A sweet southern twang as comfortable and familiar as his favorite song was echoing endlessly through his head to the rhythm of his pounding heart.

“I'm losing my mind,” he mumbled. “I'm losing my goddamn mind.”

Because McGucket had said Stan's name and, God help him, he was only just realizing how desperately he had missed the sound of it.

Stanley Pines could not bury this.

 


End file.
